Writing Slums

CONTENTS: Dublin Slums: History, Discourse, and Theoretical Considerations - Pre-Revivalist Dublin Slum Fiction and Modernism - Yeats, Urbanity, and the Slums - Urban Revivalism - Joyce and the Slums - Outlook: Writing Slums and Beyond.

Nils Beese completed his PhD in Irish literature at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He also holds master's degrees from the University of Rochester, New York, and from Trinity College Dublin.

«Voices from a hidden Dublin resound throughout Nils Beese's book. His analysis combines a fine alertness to a diversity of texts with a sure command of the wider sociocultural matrices out of which each one sprang. An astonishing, necessary work.» (Declan Kiberd, University of Notre Dame)







«Writing Slums is a vital and fascinating work of literary and cultural criticism which explores new territory in Irish Studies. Nils Beese provides a brilliant and meticulous account of the realities and myths of slum life as it was recorded and imagined in Irish writing, ranging from the work of May Laffan and Fannie Gallaher, pioneers of Irish slum fiction, to the significance of slums in the modernist aesthetics of W. B. Yeats and James Joyce. In this engaging study, Beese teaches us to re-think the history of the Irish revival, and to re-calibrate our understanding of class in Irish culture.» (John Brannigan, University College Dublin)







«This is an engrossing and ground-breaking book, which enhances significantly our knowledge of how Dublin's slums and its poor have been represented in Irish literature. It is methodically researched, with a deep understanding of the postcolonial context combined with a refreshing class analysis of the dynamics of imperialism in urban Ireland. Writing Slums: Dublin, Dirt and Literature suggests the rich possibilities for further research in this area, and is a vital resource for Irish Studies scholars, not least those working on Yeats, Joyce, Stephens, Connolly, modernism, revivalism, the popular slum text, Irish working-class writing, or the history of Dublin city. Theorising the slums as a cultural signifier, Nils Beese adds an assured and original new chapter to our understanding of Dublin, of the processes of colonisation, and of the importance of representation in both.» (Michael Pierse, Queen's University Belfast)